Personal Affairs
by pinkfloyd1770
Summary: There's a power in chronic illness,to stress established human connections and to erode society's stabilizing influence. Naruto and Sasuke make mutual sacrifices in the face of such power, and attempt to maintain a rapidly decaying optimism and normalcy.


_I decided to make this idea manifest in the Naruto universe, in part because I came back to the series after a while, and thought the characters have gained a lot more depth since the last time I looked at them. The decision to pair Naruto and Sasuke came after a bit of thought. The choice of Naruto will become obvious as the story progresses, but putting him with Sasuke came as a result of interest in the dynamics of their relationship. I'm not really focused on them as a pairing in general, but I thought it was appropriate for this story. The only trepidation I feel about putting them together in this setting is that they may come across as out of character, just their appearances and names draped over entirely different personalities. As this progresses, we'll see if that's actually a problem, and I'm sure it will be pointed out if it is. _

Sasuke set the glass of water down, untouched, for the fourth time. If anyone minded the dull clack of glass on glass, they didn't raise their heads, just absorbed the disturbance like the thick hardbound books which sat collecting dust in the left corner of his workspace. He'd picked them up at used bookstores, from old college friends who said they'd never use them and didn't feel like trying to unload them, and from his brother's currently neglected collection of increasingly useless knowledge that always threatened to overwhelm the already tightly packed shelves in his study. He sighed as his hand reached for the glass again, being diverted by an impulse, his fingertips pressing against the worn spines, dragging across the lettering, raised, stamped, golden, white, vanished... The collection completely butchered any kind of order that might have been forming in his mind. There was a volume of old Haiku written in the original brushstrokes of its country of origin, and he'd convinced himself that reading the moras relaxed him enough to be considered a form of catharses on par with jogging several city blocks, or going through Naruto's morning routine of pushups, barbell lifts, and other precisely mediated forms of self-abuse. Either way he ended up needing to drink something to complete the process: water, sake, tea, vodka. A shot of vodka qualified as an extreme measure to him, and Naruto always made a big show of things, walking over to the freezer and all the while asking "Sasuke, are you sure about this?" or "do you realize what you're doing to yourself, you goddamn dipso?" like he was in the full-blown haze of raging alcoholism.

Yes, he's sure. Sure then and sure now. He started tapping his pen against the desk, keeping up a steady staccato that managed to wake his companions to his presence; they lifted their heads in his direction, blinking once, twice, and stopping to stare as if in a trance, studying a bizarrely evolved form of life on display in glass. They knew. Everyone knew. Even his secretary, usually offering only the most basically expected courtesies, had smiled at him as he told her he was leaving for lunch, a small, uncertain smile, oscillating between helpless bewilderment and friendly encouragement. Sympathy. Fine. That was fine. Concern. He wasn't even friends with them, but maybe that made them better people. He didn't know about that, but he could shelve it, along with their sympathy, and read it back like the poetry. Empathy. He'd cut his throat out before he'd acknowledge that. Looking back at the smile, he thought it might have held some strain of that pretense, and that alone caused the mental image to rot like pages tucked away in the damp corner of some leaky basement.

He looked to the faces inspecting him, seeing most of them still apparently waiting for a revelation or an announcement of "Yes, I'm terrified now. Please understand." He wanted to snort out his discontent, but settled for tapping the pen. Maybe if he just smashed his fist through the desk, that would alleviate his frustration. If he used the flat of his fist, there probably wouldn't be too much damage, maybe just the odd shard of glass shoving itself through his skin and letting out a bit of blood. He had a captive audience; they'd love seeing that, and he'd love seeing the looks on their faces when they realized that their instructor was capable of both wanton destruction and a discontinuous break in his personality. A completely unprecedented flash of violence.

Or not. He shifted his other arm, setting it on the desk, his watch adding a sharper clack to the chorus. That brought the other heads up, and the sight held them. They had something solid to gawk at now, the same image that had been clamoring for attention in their minds since he'd been putting it on display for them every morning for the last two weeks. The spring heat had receded that day, and he'd worn a windbreaker, something which he'd thought nothing of until he stood at the front of the room as the center of an intensifying barrage of curiosity. He'd used his good arm to unzip the jacket, rolling his shoulder until the sleeve slid off, grabbing the opposite side as quickly as possible and nearly flinging the jacket to his seat. Contained in that flash of motion: "Sensei! What happened to your arm?" A burst of audacity. The epicenter of the explosion. They muttered, eyes widening and shifting and unblinking. He'd had power over them at that point, he now realized. Power to shock, power to awe, power to instill a kind of delicate terror in them. Had he been a more enthusiastic or perverse instructor he might have draped a hypothetical skin over the circumstances of his injury, and with his arm as a bloody and hard-won prop, convinced them of the possibility of the unbridled and inexplicable violence which had its seeds buried in the mind of every person, germinating. A dramatic analogy. One step further and he could draw on the image of a hideous, malformed child tearing its way into the world, groping blindly and dragging its parents down with it. Naruto's dreams colored his thoughts more often than those of their creator.

The arm wasn't so bad now. Another two or three weeks and he'd have the stitches out; before that he'd be able to remove the bandages. He only wore them now because he didn't want to have to cover the red marks with a long-sleeved shirt. If he'd been drinking he would have told himself that he also wore them for his students' benefit, or more to amuse them, to continue to stoke their curiosity and leave them with the reminder, every day, that now they would probably never know how he'd gotten into the position of needing to ask someone for help when he wanted to move anything larger than a stack of books. He'd finally given up and dragged his brother out to help with the whatever else he'd had floating around in the room; most of the books wouldn't see the light of day until he found more space for them, and even then they'd be just as likely to be used as expensive paperweights, or as decoration on a coffee table or nightstand. The last book in his stack fit that description well, giving a detailed and thoroughly illustrated description of the geography of South America. He laughed at himself when he saw the letters pressed into the spine. At least he could have justified a book of Japanese geography, even if one so elaborate would still have left him questioning its presence in the room. But South America...he had no desire to visit the continent, knew no one who lived there, and had never even read a book by an author from any country in the region. His closest association came from the Peruvian sweater he'd received for his birthday, which he admitted was warm and comfortable enough to wear on a regular basis during Winter and Fall.

"Sensei?"

Sasuke frowned and looked towards the inquiry. Sensei. He never should have let them call him that, thought its immediate substitute of Professor or Mr Uchiha provided little more appeal to him.

"Yes, what is it?"

The student shifted, clearing his throat and rearranging the papers in from of him, and Sasuke again resisted the urge to vocalize his frustration. The job had taught him restraint.

"Well, it's been over half an hour, and I was wondering if we were going to...do a lesson plan today?"

This again. He should have let them gawk at his arm all day. "I gave you grammar exercises and readings. Are you having any trouble?"

"No, no, but...it seems as thought you're not..."

Sasuke sighed, finally. He couldn't fault the student for noticing. He probably wanted the attention, or at least a diversion. "You shouldn't concern yourself with my amusement. Whether or not I'm enjoying myself isn't relevant." He paused so everyone could keep their gaze on him. Yes, this is probably what he wanted. "However, is anyone having trouble?" He raised his head as though the room extended for hundreds of yards.

No one voiced concerns over their work. They weren't focused on that, and he didn't mind at this point. Two weeks ago he'd have paid to strangle whatever idiot had announced his decision.

"Anyone?" He asked the question rhetorically. They wouldn't even care if he decided to collect their work now and mark it for credit. Mutual apathy, though in his case he could afford some of it. How would Itachi have handled this? Another pointless question. He'd work them to the last minute, shut down any inquiries regarding injuries or assaults or fanciful thoughts of mutated infants, and leave with the same composure he'd arrived with, neatly closing off a segment of his professional life. Sasuke was in the process of forcefully pasting that segment together, and now, with an air of almost total disregard for the act, found himself satisfied with his attempts.

"You're really leaving though, aren't you?"

The air was full of blank shots today. He pushed against the desk with both arms, the skin around his eyes tightening as he felt pressure around the stitches. That was to be expected, apparently. Gentle, regular exertions each day, to make sure that one arm wasn't stronger than the other. He knowingly and willingly walked in front of the firing squad, having already decided which shots he would dodge and which he would simply let rip through him.

"Yes. It's true. Whoever you heard it from, I'm leaving. I'll be gone by the end of the week."

The same student who had spoken first hesitated with the initial shot. Someone bolder took up the position.

"Does it have something to do with your arm?"

Sasuke didn't frown or perturb his face in another way. He'd accept that blow. "No." And no lie was spoken. He didn't need the full dexterity of his arm to do his job.

They caught on quickly though. The boy who had spoken before found his resolve again. "You're betraying us and going off to another school are you, sensei?"

He made light of the situation and Sasuke couldn't dredge up the resolve and will to be offended or irritated; it had been firmly locked away somewhere, far off beyond the reach of his immediate imagination.

"I wouldn't go as far as to declare all out treason just yet, but I'm not leaving because of anything this class has done, or because of the school." And they weren't bad students. Not spectacular. There were no Itachis amongst them, not even someone of his own caliber, though maybe they'd decided to show themselves in the presence of other instructors and subjects.

"Will you starve without us, sensei?"

Now Sasuke let spare breath escape through his nostrils in a burst, sharp and rough. Damaging. He sounded like a victim of consumption. "Neither intellectually nor corporeally."

"Aw, you're hurting us sensei." The students were relaxing now.

"Is that why your arm is injured? Are you desperate for cash and getting into fights with gangs? Or maybe you really are starving and you're trying to eat dogs or cats off the street." The student paused for dramatic effect. "Or people..." Several others around him snickered, with others rolling their eyes.

They were the ones who thought of Sasuke as a model for what to eventually aspire to, some yawning, apparently ever expanding dispenser of knowledge, and even, at sporadic intervals, wisdom. Some even tried to copy his personality, throwing a veil of indifference over themselves and approaching every problem, personal or professional, with a detachment that signaled experience which as yet remained far beyond their reach. It turned out to be a poor job of grafting, however, and the air of steady emotion was a smothering of personality, an abrupt repression of impulse that seemed necessary to regulate their development. Sasuke lacked the stamina and perhaps the fortitude to still their ministrations and correct them; it was probably better if they learned on their own, as he had.

He turned his attention to the student who had spoken last. "Interesting theory, but there are better jobs available for letting me lead the lifestyle of a cannibal. I could be a postman, or a doctor's assistant. Very convenient access to drugs. Or if I decided to go after animals, I have a friend who's a vet, and I'm sure he wouldn't notice the odd animal missing." The last lie formed with complete certainty. And the boy didn't know how close he'd come to the mark of the cause of his injury. He flexed his hand. The pressure flowed in and receded, a tide of contracting flesh. He'd let them indulge in their fantasies of him ripping out a man's triceps with his teeth, only to be branded in retaliation, but now he wished he'd given them the lecture about abrupt violence rushing to the surface from some tangled synapse. A misdirection of electrical impulses is all it was, a flaw in a network.

"Sensei?" The voice came to him softly, rising from the pale lake of his memory like the dark oarsman's boat to guide the dead and lost souls to their proper place.

Sasuke sighed, finally capitulating. "I'm still here for a few more days, and we still have a few things I'd like to cover in that period of time. I don't think everyone is quite sure which particles to use in which context, and I'm still noticing mistakes in Kana recognition." Again he almost felt like receding, but decided against it, deliberately clenching his fist to cause the dull ache to spread up his arm. "And as for my imminent departure...well, if you really want to make me fell as though I've made some difference, you can do so by taking and passing the JPLT at N3." He let the cacophony of disjointed protests and incredulity strike him. They'd turned into poor marksmen, it seemed. His newly developing apathy he could tolerate, but he still had some pride in his abilities, and his ego wasn't quite robust enough to let the apparent lack of confidence simply roll off like pellets of water.

"You're telling me that you don't have a firm enough grasp of the material to perform at an average level after almost three years of instruction? I was planning on recommending that some of you take N2, but that probably would have been like asking you to swallow your own tongues."

"Of course! Sensei, some of us are still having trouble with particles and kana. You said so yourself."

"Both of which are easily rectifiable problems. There are only a few basic particles that you need for most purposes; it's just a matter of grounding your sentence structure. As for Kana, you can spend a weekend or two going through the two lists, and you'll be fine. It's nothing very detrimental either. Some of you are just getting confused regarding voiced and voiceless sounds. Kanji is fine, and you have a solid core of verbs and vocabulary."

That didn't placate them. "Do you expect your math class to know multivariable calculus, Sensei?"

"I do, actually. And since some of you are in that class too, I should tell you that if you want to be able to test out of more advanced math courses in your first year of college, you need to learn how to calculate line integrals."

"Sensei.."

Sensei, Sensei. That title had spilled over to his other class as well, and that couldn't be corrected now. He looked to the clock at the top of the door frame. Five minutes until class finished and he still had an appointment with administration to keep. First he'd call Naruto. The conversation would inevitably turn to his arm, though Naruto never explicitly mentioned it now, just blurring it into a general sentiment of concern, articulating with "Is everything all right with you?" Naruto wasn't usually so algorithmic with his interactions, and Sasuke didn't know what he could say to deter him from axiomatizing other aspects of his life. He knew it was Naruto's attempt to regulate himself, force himself into restraint by beating some of his spontaneity out, but that would only draw the synapse tighter, make the disturbances sharper, his grip more vicious. The image of deep red blood congealing on his arm and the wooden floor beneath him rose to his mind, spreading as he touched it and slipped against it, and with that he saw the face with flesh oscillating without any motive beneath it, snarling now and being placated by unseen stimulation a moment later, those now relaxed features smearing themselves with those of a bloody, malformed infant whose face he couldn't make out even in his mind. He hadn't pursued it with Naruto. He hadn't made out anything except the limbs, one grasped around its throat, the other with fingers splayed, angling back reaching towards the sky as if in attempted placation of an otherworldly benefactor. Strangling himself...he didn't remember that before, it didn't make sense to him, expect on some absurdly symbolic level where he could see it at as an impossible mutation of the Passion, all three victims being molded into the mass before him.

The students were looking at him with concern again. They must have been envisioning him on the brink of a break down. Soon he would start yelling and shaking and telling them that he wouldn't be able to survive without this job, that he really was eating cats off the street. The dramatic confession never came, as the bell rang in one long trill, effectively ending the trance that had engulfed the occupants of the room. Sasuke returned to his desk and debated whether he would be able to take the books with him today, or if he would wait for his brother to come on Friday. They weren't heavy, but some were too wide to be tucked comfortably under his arm, and the glue on the spine of another was becoming dry and brittle, and he didn't want to risk having it crack while the pages shifted in his grip.

"Sensei?"

Sasuke looked up to see the student who had originally broken the silence standing in front of his desk, a folded piece of paper in one hand.

"Yes?"

"Well, I know you said that you didn't need any help, but if you're looking for another job because something didn't work out here, I talked to my father, and he said he could find you a job at one of his firm's foreign branches. He said he wouldn't have any trouble finding a place for someone with your language and analytical skills. I don't know all the details, but he said if you were interested, you could call him." He handed Sasuke the paper, his hand outstretched. It remained between them, motionless and soundless like a held breath. Robert. Sasuke placed a name with his face. He was one of the better students, mostly due to his enthusiasm, both in this class and his other. He didn't know what he would do with himself after he graduated. Most likely he'd drift off to a university that his father had edged him towards, and he'd find himself in some respectable profession, engineering, or medicine maybe, something which required sufficient mental honing to be challenging, but still provided the opportunity for a comfortable life. He decided to be patient with the boy.

"Thank you, but I'm leaving on my own choice. I don't need another job so soon, especially not one that would require me to travel." He paused, deciding what to say. "It's...a matter of personal importance."

Robert nodded, seeming to understand, though he still held his hand out. "I see. Still, you can take the contact info, in case you ever want to use."

Sasuke again conceded, taking the paper and placing it in the his shirt pocket. "You should take the language proficiency test. I think you could do well."

"Thanks, sensei. If things keep going well with this class, I'll definitely consider it. I'll try to drop you a line sometime, if things go well, or maybe even if they don't."

Sasuke didn't conceal his surprise. He'd never made an effort to reach out to his students outside of class. He didn't see the need or benefit. As long as he was able to impart the course curriculum to them, he didn't care what relationship he had with them.

"Thank you. Let me know." He spoke only what he could immediately think of.

Robert smiled. "Good luck sensei. Hope things work out for you." He turned and left, opening the door a little wider as he walked from the room.

Sasuke placed his palm on top of the stack of books, as if sensing their their effect on the desk. He looked at his arm, saw the slight wrinkling of the bandages around the wounds. He'd let Itachi deal with his useless possessions. He looked at the clock, already late for his phone call and meeting, and he hoped, without recourse, that Naruto would be jarred out of his slowly developing routine and decide to call him out of concern or some other slowly encroaching emotion that he couldn't yet identify. He would take it as it came. He'd learn more from Naruto than just the content of his dreams.


End file.
